


take a hint

by navience



Category: The Poppy War - R. F. Kuang
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Canon Bisexual Character, Cheerleader Sring Venka, F/F, Friends With Benefits, Internalized Homophobia, Jock Fang Runin
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-17
Updated: 2020-11-01
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:08:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26516479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/navience/pseuds/navience
Summary: Sring Venka is hot, popular, and mean. Rin thinks that’s hot. Fang Runin is not like other girls. Venka thinks that’s hot.AKA, Rin fights her way into a relationship.
Relationships: Fang Runin/Sring Venka
Comments: 12
Kudos: 40





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> check out @ yuancube's incredible art for this on twitter, and many thanks to lyn @ venkaes for beta reading! ms. kuang if you ever read this please don't sue me

Like most things in Rin’s life, it starts with a fight.

She and Venka circle each other slowly, waiting and watching for any sudden movement. Of course, Rin strikes first, because after two and a half years of training with Jiang she hasn’t managed to learn patience. She rushes Venka, but Venka has eagle eyes and Rin doesn’t really even touch her before Venka knocks her out of the way and delivers a powerful kick that technically connects but effectively bounces off. Rin growls and swings her legs up, twisting them together and knocking them to the mat temporarily before Rin dislodges herself to stand and move out of immediate knock-down distance.

“This is too easy,” Rin bites out as Venka bounces up and starts to advance. “It’s like you’re not even trying to kill me.”

Venka’s pretty brow creases. The words propel her forward, breaking her out of her patient, reactive shell. She punches Rin twice, impeccably aimed, and then tries to throw her. Rin cycles blandly through two basic forms to loosen Venka’s grip, ending up behind her and in a position to chokehold her. She would have, if Venka hadn’t elbowed her _hard_ , anticipating the movement and determined to get a head start.

They move in a peculiar sort of swing step, and that’s when it dawns on Rin that they’re not fighting, they’re dancing. A reflection of the body’s use, a pure celebration of movement. They’ve sparred so often it’s no longer a grudge match but a way to burn technique into their muscle memory, even if Venka isn’t as much of a challenge as Nezha. She can feel herself sinking into Venka’s consciousness, knowing how she’ll move before she does, reacting accordingly to keep the rhythm going. They both land hits, but neither really feels it.

Venka likes to trash talk, too, taunting Rin as they flow through forms, her low, breathless voice a mirror of Rin’s expressive style. Her own face is stretched into a disturbing smile, one that widens every time Venka hits her. She _likes_ fighting, and she likes pain because it makes her fight harder.

“Venka, shut the fuck up.”

They twist again and the mat rushes up to meet them as they descend, Rin on top. She falls back into her body, their rhythm broken. She prepares to end the match, a path only she can see now wide open. 

“One, two-” she counts, her right knee pressed into Venka’s lower abdomen and occupying her arms pinning her wrists. There’s a bruise darkening on her pale throat. Rin put it there minutes ago. Somewhere, deep, deep inside, buried under about thirty layers of anger issues, she winces. Venka’s eyes are wild as she squirms; Rin watches them flick over her, dark and burning. She knows what’s next—some form of insult, just before time ends, intended to goad her into—

“Oooooooh, you wanna kiss me _so bad_.” Venka sneers up at her. 

Rin flinches, like an idiot.

Venka takes advantage of her slightly slackened grip and rolls out from under her. She wins the match two minutes later.

-

“Oh, Vee—uh, Venka?” Venka looks at the junior cheerleader in front of her with disdain. 

“Yes?” Her tone is clipped. She doesn’t like to be interrupted while choreographing. 

“There’s, um, you have a,” the second-year’s courage fails her there. 

“You have a hickey!” someone else calls out. Venka narrows her eyes.

“Not a hickey. Get back to stretching and focus on your own shit before you bother me about things that aren’t nationals.”

“Did Nezha give that to you?” one of her fellow seniors smirks. Venka’s brain short-circuits. 

“ _Nezha_?” 

“Did you two break up?” This girl is bold. Luckily for her, Venka is too shocked to verbally gut her.

“We were never together. What the fuck are you on?” She holds up a hand. “Don’t answer that. Congrats, people, we’re running an extra two miles today.” They all groan and oblige.

Venka herself regrets the extra miles, because her training routine for mixed martial arts and cheer already leaves her close to perpetually sore. Still, for all her bitter bluster, she loves her sports. Cheer—the squad has suffered close to four months of Venka beating perfection into them. She’s far from the worst or the most demanding captain they’ve had, if a little more… abrasive, than usual. Sometimes they weren’t sure if she knew that her martial arts practice wasn’t supposed to bleed into their cheer practice. Venka is too focused on nationals to care. Sinegard has a long history at the competition, and she will die by her own hand before she lets down the entire school, and, more importantly, herself.

Sinegard is a rarity in its teaching of combat to its students, but it is an old military base as well as the most prestigious school in the country, so the course is hardly questioned. Venka’s taken martial arts classes with an old family friend-of-a-friend and a bitter old bastard since she could walk, and learned from her family, who are all proud Sinegardian graduates, but she loves it beyond tradition.

And archery? Archery is special to Venka. It’s more of a hobby to her, something she does purely because she loves it. She’s good, too—she can outshoot anyone she knows. It’s because she loves it so much that she holds it close to her chest. Venka doesn’t hide things, and she’s still proud, she’s just less inclined to boast about archery than she is to talk about her more public extracurriculars.

“You look like you have a hickey,” Nezha points out as he drives her out to the range. Her car, a pretty, sleek, expensive thing, is in the shop for the second time because she fucking sucks at driving. It might be the only thing she’s really bad at.

“Shut the fuck up. You, too?”

“It’s not my fault people see bruises on your neck and think _hickey_. It’s actually a pretty logical conclusion.” 

“You were literally watching the match.”

“Yeah. How’d you win so fast, anyway?”

“You can’t appreciate my martial prowess?”

“I can,” he holds up his left hand, where she’d stabbed his palm with a pencil when they were six, “but I can also appreciate Rin’s. That shit was not normal for her.” Venka’s face flushes, and she turns to look out the window.

“Maybe she was having an off day.”

“Fang Runin? An off day?” She can’t see him, but she knows he’s arching a brow in the annoying, condescending way only a Yin can.

“I might have cheated a little bit. Something I said got to her.” She can’t help her smile, remembering how shellshocked Rin had been. It was cute.

“What was it?”

“Mm, I can’t really remember. I didn’t expect her to react.”

“Liar,” he accuses, poking the back of her head.

“True, but I’m not saying.” He side-eyes her, but she holds firm. He sighs and goes back to humming to Taylor Swift, which he insists on blaring all the goddamn time. She leans back, smirking, as she recalls today’s victory. Satisfying as hell, especially from where she had been standing (lying?) when she’d said it. When Rin had been winning, leaning over her with her breath coming fast and the heat from her body radiating from every place they touched. Her face as she watched Venka squirm, like she’d enjoyed it, might be ingrained in Venka’s brain forever. Her face when she’d lost, too. Venka would treasure that forever.

-

“Rin?” Kitay asks, while Rin’s extremely dangerous and prone-to-punching hands are occupied holding a ridiculous number of books as they walk side-by-side. “Do you have a crush on Venka?”

“What?” Rin stops walking. Her tone isn’t malicious, Kitay can tell. There’s genuine shock and confusion in her dark eyes. “No? She’s about three degrees from hate status.” He believes that, but then she tacks on: “I don’t really like girls like that.”

Kitay makes this choked noise that doesn’t really make it past his throat that sounds like _mmpha_ , and it translates roughly to: _what the fuck? Rin, what the fuck?_ If Rin didn’t know Kitay as well as she does, she wouldn’t have been able to pick up all the nuance in _mmpha_. 

“Kitay.” He starts walking again. She rushes to catch up. “ _Kitay_.” He starts walking faster. “Am I gay and you didn’t tell me?” 

“Why would it be my responsibility to tell you that you’re gay? I thought you knew!” 

“How was I supposed to know?” Rin sounds outraged, and Kitay can’t tell if he wants to laugh or run away.

“Have you ever heard yourself talk about girls?” 

“I talk about girls like any other girl does!”

“‘Su Daji is stunning. She must have killed someone for it.’”

“What?”

“‘Kitay, what do you think of Niang? Her eyelashes are kind of perfect. Also, her nose is cute.’”

“Are you quoting me?” Rin has murderous fire in her eyes, and Kitay hopes that she values him more than she values her pride, which he is dismantling with every word.

“‘Venka is a bitch. She’s Nezha’s bitch, too, which is worse. Her hair is beautiful, though. I don’t understand how a person who’s like a million wasps in a human bodysuit can be that attractive.’” Kitay pauses in his rendition of Rin’s past regrettable words. Rin closes her eyes, remembering what comes next. “And I admire her work ethic.”

“And finally, I really think this one takes the cake,” Kitay says. “‘Nezha is fucking hot. He’s so pretty, almost like a girl.’”

“ _Fuck_ your eidetic memory,” Rin says vehemently.

Later, in her dorm, she ponders. She’s not used to self-reflection. The majority of her decisions, like applying for a full ride scholarship to a prestigious boarding school when her hometown was so rural and so poor the roads were still mostly dirt, were made out of necessity for survival. Even joining football, which had begun as a challenge to Nezha and Jun and all the people who were angry that a broke Speerly orphan could attend Sinegard and ended with Jiang’s _unusual_ coaching and college scouts watching her, had been a way to keep the place she’d fought for at school. Years later, when she had been forced to sit still for hours and “calm the fuck down,” she’d pondered the universe and reality and how small she was in the workings of the world. She had never had time to think about who she was as a person. About her larger identity.

Yeah, she doesn’t ponder for very long. She’s not built like that. She knows herself.

“I’m bisexual,” she tells Kitay the next day.

“Cool,” he says, and takes a bite of porridge way too big for his mouth. She means to follow his lead, until Venka walks into the dining hall late, arms folded tightly across her chest, murder scrawled openly across her face. The morning light, or what little there is in Sinegard Academy’s dining hall with its small windows, strokes gold lovingly across Venka’s skin as she walks past Rin and Kitay’s table. As tightly wound as she clearly is from frustration, Venka moves gracefully, swerving between tables and messes without looking down. It’s obvious she has complete and total confidence in herself; there is no fight Venka can’t win. 

Rin’s mouth turns up against her will, and that’s when she remembers the catalyst for yesterday’s revelation. In contrast to yesterday’s low, throaty tone, Venka’s cursing is now echoing across the hall, effectively disturbing the peace.

“Ah, shit,” Rin grumbles. Kitay shoots her a knowing look, and she sits on her hands before she can pour the remainder of her breakfast on his head.

-

To the untrained eye, Mr. Irjah’s class is perfectly normal. To the highly nosy and accustomed to routine Sinegardian student, it’s a gold mine of gossip. Nezha is looking at Venka, who is looking at Rin, who is looking literally anywhere else in the room. This is different from the usual order of Venka looking at Nezha looking at Rin, who is sometimes looking back at Nezha but mostly focused on her schoolwork.

Rin is not focused on her schoolwork. She is trying very, very hard to do that, but it’s next to impossible when _you wanna kiss me so bad_ is replaying in her brain and her blood is singing and her muscles feel almost weak and shaky. Wow, is it hot in here?

 _I do not have a crush on fucking Venka. I do not have a crush on fucking Venka. I do not have a crush on fucking_ —

“Venka,” she sighs quietly. Nezha coughs. She glares at him, hoping he’ll burst into flames so he can never mention it to anyone ever. He remains tragically uncharred. She bends back over her work, doubly determined.

-

Venka slams her head into her textbook.

“I hate it here,” Nezha mutters jokingly under his breath, before turning to her with a smile and asking, “Hey, what’s wrong?”

“Wipe that grin off your face,” Venka says, her words distorted by the way her cheek is smushed against the pages. “Big faker.”

Nezha sticks out his tongue at her. She tries to reciprocate, only to accidentally lick the page. She pulls her head away, disgusted. They giggle together for a moment, the only two in the study room.

“So,” Nezha starts, drawing out the _ooooo_. Venka makes big puppy eyes at him, trying to avoid his suddenly somber mood. His mouth quirks, but only a little. “You and Fang Runin?”

“What about me and Fang Runin?” Venka swallows hard, but she refuses to sever the eye contact between them. That would be too much like backing away, like hiding, and she would never hide from him. Well—

 _No_ , she insists to herself. _I won’t hide from Nezha._

“You sparred with her.” She nods, waiting for the conversation to be over, so she can go back to her perfect little life crushing people under her foot. So she can escape the pressure Nezha just put on her. “You’ve been sparring with her a lot lately, actually. And then the match today was, um, it was weird.” _An understatement_ , Venka thinks. “And now you’ve been weird all day. And I just want to ask if it’s related.”

“It’s not,” she says, and she knows the blush burning on her cheeks and the moisture in her eyes say otherwise. 

“Are you sure? I’m not trying to pressure you, honest,” he holds up a hand. “I just want to be a good friend. I felt like I wouldn’t be if I didn’t make the effort to ask.”

“I’m fine,” she grits out, and her voice is already naturally low but now it’s lower.

“You can talk to me,” he says, and that tips her over the edge, because she can’t. She can’t force the words burning her brain out of her mouth.

“I’m just, um, I’m on my cycle, and that’s why I’ve been weird. And I train with her because she’s a good fighter and I want to be better, and I especially want to be better than her. Because I hate her.

“Venka—”

“I _hate_ her.” She rasps, as close to pleading as she can go. “I’m better than…” _Her. This_. Venka doesn’t know. Neither are true. Her gaze darts away from his for a millisecond, but when it snaps back, it’s infinitely more intense. “Never ask me about this again.”

Nezha opens his mouth, then thinks better and shuts it. He nods, solemnly, his dark eyes soft and understanding.

The only sound for the rest of the afternoon is the sound of Venka’s pen scratching much harder than it needs to on her paper.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hmm warning for internalized homophobia and a little from venka's family i guess. the real au here is that gender isn't taken into consideration for football lmao

Like most things in Sring Venka’s life, it’s about her pride.

It’s difficult to damage. She knows her own worth (a lot) and her own faults (few and far between). Still, rarely does she lose sight of what most people see in her.

Sring Venka is hot. She was a pretty baby who grew into a prettier girl who is on the cusp of becoming a pretty woman. Her profile is chiseled from white marble, her hair is so dark and shiny it’s like the ocean at midnight, and she doesn’t spend as much time as she does working out to _not_ have one fine ass; in short, her outside is about as pleasant to look at as a look inside her brain would be unpleasant.

Because Sring Venka is also _mean_. She’s been described as a snake, a demon, a tease. Never to her face, of course; Venka isn’t so much a snake as she is unequivocally blunt in her refusal to spend time with people she doesn’t care about. She’s not diplomatic in her approach to mean-girlery; the most subtle she’s ever been is when a teacher is at risk of hearing. Still, she doesn’t really worry. Her daddy is rich beyond belief and she’s the kickass head cheerleader _and_ her best friend is Yin Nezha, so.

Venka gets to do whatever she wants.

Yet _this_ has hung over her, eaten away at her infamous ego for the past year until her every step rings _liar, liar, liar_. She apologizes that night silently, mouthing the words over and over so she’ll be able to say them tomorrow. 

She doesn’t want to hide from Nezha. 

“It’s not that hard, idiot,” she growls at the mirror. “Just take it back.” Gods, she wishes she could take back the entire day. 

She did mean everything she said, once upon a time. She’s not proud of it, and she’s not proud of how the rug had to be pulled from beneath her feet before she realized that her upbringing had made her small-minded and blind. The rug-pulling itself is a painful story, one that she’s sure can’t be as painful as what she put Rin through, but that still stings and scratches all over her body.

Venka was thirteen, and at family dinner (held once a week; the rest of the time, her father was busy working, and her mother was busy socializing, and Venka was buried under tons of homework and sports trying to drown the silence) she’d asked what _gay_ meant.

Her mother had dropped her fork, and her father had blustered about the freakishness of same-gender relationships and tradition and then he’d started quoting Hesperian philosophers, for some reason. She’d extracted the meaning somewhere within the rant but was still slightly shell-shocked by the extremity of the reaction. Afterwards, when Venka had just been relieved the lecture was over, her mother had come up to her room. As she’d brushed out Venka’s hair, she’d said softly.

“Your father is right, Venka. _That_ ,” she’d said, disgust dripping off her lips, “isn’t something that will touch our family. You don’t need to worry, darling.” Venka had leaned into her mother’s touch, nodding. Four years and a thousand moments just like that later, the need for worry had hit her like a freight train.

She’d known she was screwed, that this day was coming, for months now. 

_She and Nezha—because it’s always her and Nezha, until it isn’t—are sitting on the floor together, snickering over a stupid inside joke and generally making everyone around them feel excluded and inferior._

_Venka can barely speak as her laughter is renewed, both of them trying hard to restrain themselves from cackling when it’s before first period and their classmates aren’t in a humorous mood so early._

_“‘Scuse me.”_

_Venka and Nezha’s skulls crash together,_ ow _, as their heads snap up to look at_ —

_Fang Runin. Dirty peasant, scholarship kid, the girl who’d punched Nezha the first day of school: your pick of epithet. All their effort to crush her spirit what felt like a lifetime ago had gone to naught as she spent the majority of her time studying with Jiang, who was perpetually high and barely worthy of being called a teacher, and outpaced both of them in classes and, to Nezha's consternation, both of their contact sports. And now she’d spent her summer weightlifting, judging by the breadth of her shoulders._

_“Fuck me,” Venka hisses, and it’s only when Nezha gives her a strange look that she realizes that he could hear._

_So begins their senior year of high school._

_Oh, gods, her parents will be so proud._

Now, she scrunches both her hands in her hair and paces. Dishonoring her family isn’t new to Venka. She’d dishonored them by pursuing archery, by going to Sinegard, by arguing with her father every time they spoke for the last two years. She’d pushed and pushed the boundaries, so why was she afraid this was what would break them?

 _Why was she afraid_? She slams both her palms against the mirror and stares at her own reflection, at her red eyes and her wild hair and she wonders if she’s looking her own humanity right in the face.

“Are you good in there?” Rin’s voice comes from beyond the bathroom door, knocking when Venka doesn’t respond. She winces, instinctively trying to smooth down her hair and soothe her irritated, puffy eyes.

“Fuck off, I’m just washing my face!” Venka hollers back. 

“Can you do it quieter? I’ve been awake for like forty hours now.”

“Both of you, please, stop yelling!” Niang’s sweet voice pitches over the bickering dormmates. Instant silence descends upon them. They both like Niang, who defied Venka just a little bit to talk to Rin in their freshman year and is far less antagonistic than either of them. 

“Alright,” Venka splashes herself with water and smacks her cheeks. “Pity party’s over. Time for bed.” For a cheerleader, she’s not great at pep talks.

Venka walks outside, as picture-perfect as usual, and bows her head to Niang in apology for the commotion. Then she bows to Rin, too, because forty hours awake sounds awful, even though the maniac does it at least once a week. Then she topples face-first into bed and curses herself because she absolutely refuses to go soft for Fang fucking Runin.

She wakes up late, already mentally grumbling about Sinegard’s dorm system and the fact that every time Rin so much as breathed, Venka felt like she was vibrating out of her skin, resulting in a late night and poor sleep. She wonders blearily if she can use her father’s clout to get a separate room. Unfortunately, she has a particular aversion to using her father’s name and, more importantly, she wants to stop perpetuating his stupid, dumb, stupid views on class and color and it’ll totally come off the wrong way if she tries to move.

Venka thanks her lucky stars every day that Rin is, unexpectedly, a fairly forgiving person. She wonders if her forgiveness is merely an extension of Nezha’s— _here, you’re just Nezha’s shadow, you’re inseparable from him_ — but she’s grateful for it nonetheless. She and Rin haven’t become friends, per se, not even as much as Rin and Nezha have, but they tolerate each other now, in their own bizarre way.

And now Nezha knows about—about that. She covers her burning face with her hands and moans. She makes her way to and through the dining hall slowly, tightly wound with nerves, crossing her arms over her chest like her own hands can be her armor. 

“I’m sorry,” she blurts the second she reaches Nezha, who is sitting alone, for once. “For—well, you know what for.” He takes a leisurely sip of water and watches her sweat.

“It’s forgotten,” he says airily. “Unless…?”

“It’s forgotten.” She says sharply. His head dips in acquiescence.

“I saved you some porridge, since you missed the serving.” She beams brightly, ready to thank him, before he tacks on, “and then I got really, really hungry, so I ate it.”

“Fuck you,” she says vehemently, relief breaking through her at the return to normalcy. “Fuck you and your mother, too.” His nose wrinkles.

“Please don’t.” They dissolve into laughter and Venka sits down. The sun is shining.

-

“Hey! Rin!” Nezha is dashing madly toward her and Kitay, Venka following at a leisurely pace.

“What’s up?” She grins, wrapping her arm around his shoulders and rubbing her knuckles against his skull. They spend a few minutes wrestling, which is more than enough time for Venka to catch up.

“We love our knuckleheads, don’t we?” Kitay sighs.

“Sure do,” Venka grins. “Hey, remember when we were kids and—”

“No,” Kitay says. “I don’t remember that.”

“Your memory is photographic,” Nezha points out, breaking out of Rin’s grip and trying to smooth down his artfully shaggy hair.

“Yeah. Too much stuff in here,” Kitay taps his head. “I had to throw that one out to make room for other stuff.”

“I call bullshit,” Rin says, giving Kitay a friendly punch on the shoulder that sends him stumbling to the side. “Sorry.”

“Well, I can refresh your memory,” Venka says. “We were seven, right, Nezha? And Nezha wanted to show off his newest tricks.”

“Oh, just Nezha?”

“Yes, Rin, just Nezha. I was a goddamn delight as a child—”

“Yeah, and Lucifer was an angel,” Kitay interrupts. “As I remember it, you were actually the instigator of at least fifty-four percent of crimes committed against me when we were little.”

“Good to know you do remember, man!” Nezha says, punching Kitay on the opposite shoulder.

“Guys!”

Venka opts to sit back and listen to the bickering, which is what she usually does on the decreasingly rare occasions all of them spent time together. She and Kitay occasionally make snarky comments to each other, but really it was Rin and Nezha who gel. At least now she has time to focus on the homework she’d ignored in favor of nursing her blisters from forgoing proper shoes during cheer and a wrist guard during archery.

“Oh, Venka?” Rin says stiffly, at the end of the lunch period. Venka’s focus snaps onto her, her eyes huge as she looks up at Rin. She has a strong sense of déjà vu. Rin stares at her, unable to decide where to settle her eyes. Eyes? No, she’s afraid she won’t be able to stop looking at those. Hair? Too awkward. Lips? Fuck, not that, eyes is fine.

“What do you want?” Venka’s words are harsh, but she sounds… playful. Less than friendly, but more than hostile.

“You,” Rin fidgets, “you usually ask if I want to spar, but we haven’t in a couple weeks. So I thought I’d ask.”

“I am busy,” Venka says almost immediately. “I mean, I have been busy. I mean, I’ll check my planner and get back to you?”

“Sure.”

“It’ll be soon. I, um, we live together.” Her face is a mask.

“Yeah.”

Rin sighs contentedly as she settles back. All is right with the world.

If one were a mindreader, Venka’s mind would sound like static on steroids with a few crucial words looping around and around. _Rin—spar—ask? Girl. Rin. Rin. Spar._ She digs her fingernails into her palms and forces herself to breathe steadily.

-

It feels like Rin is fucking everywhere these days. Venka swears they never used to see each other for how close they were in proximity, but suddenly Rin’s forgotten her helmet in their room and she drops by while Venka’s restringing her bow, or Nezha’s invited Kitay and Rin to a study session (which they only accept about 50% of the time), and they just keep making the most awkward, prolonged eye contact in class.

When the cheer and football teams have practice at the same time: Venka’s determinedly ignoring the loud mass of people on the field while she and the girls practice balances. Out of the corner of Venka’s eye, Rin jogs to the water stand, pouring the contents of a paper cup over her head, then shaking her head like a dog. Frozen in time, water droplets glisten around her, her short, straight hair barely in disarray. Her brown skin is glowing, her expression one of bliss. Her eyes are closed and Venka takes a moment to admire the sweep of her lashes and the line of her brow; down to her nose, softly flared; down to the lower half of her face, where water is dripping off her strong jawline and wetness is smeared around her mouth.

Venka’s knees almost buckle and she comes perilously close to imbalancing the whole stack of people.

Even in her room she’s not safe: Rin muscles past her to shower at the same time Venka is on seven of ten skincare routine steps, insisting that she’s too sweaty to fathom waiting. Venka waves her through with an eye roll, fixating on her own reflection. When Rin spends all of three minutes in the shower, and decides to clamber out while Venka’s still on step number nine, instead of giving her any warning like a decent, reasonable human being. Venka closes her eyes and prays to all sixty-four gods in a row. One of them has the power to make her forget the sound of Rin’s satisfied sigh, certainly?

During school: Venka spins her pen in one hand, sure that they’re rehashing the same concept in math for the thirtieth time in her academic career. Besides, it’s still warm for late autumn and most of the class is zoned out, excluding, of course, one Fang Runin. Her face is screwed up in concentration— Venka can practically see her metaphorically beating the concepts into her brain. Rin pushes her hair out of her face thoughtlessly, scribbling on her paper and flipping pages somewhat aggressively. She’s gnawing on her bottom lip, and that’s what gets Venka.

She’s transfixed on Rin’s face, suddenly, every miniscule expression. There are wrinkles between her eyebrows, at the corners of her eyes, betraying how hard, how much she feels. When Rin smiles, it’s a full body experience. It’s like warming your hands over a fire, smelling the sweet smoke. When she’s angry, it’s with her whole soul, even if it flames out eventually. Venka’s gaze wanders back to Rin’s lips, the upper lip full and shaded slightly darker than the bottom, which is a little glossy and still trapped between her teeth. 

Her lips look soft, even though the rest of Rin isn’t. 

_Ooh, you wanna kiss me so bad_. Remembering her win that day brings a satisfied smile curling on Venka’s face. _You’re projecting_. Venka jerks in her seat, closing her eyes at the thought. She visualizes that thought as a beetle, a bug. Then she raises her mental foot and crushes it. 

“We on for today?” Rin asks after class, hefting her books as she prepares to go. Venka shoots her a poisonous look, her eyes like twin black mirrors for how hard and cold they are.

“No, thanks.” The thanks is so venomous that it’s abundantly clear Venka is thanking Rin for the pleasure of _not_ forcing her to be around her, for getting the fuck out of her face.

-

“What’s up her ass?” Rin complains to Kitay later. “She looked at me like she hated me.”

“Don’t you two usually settle that on the mats?”

“Yeah, but it wasn’t like usual. Her usual is more, like,” Rin assumes a pose twirling a strand of hair that is clearly supposed to indicate her imitation of Venka but looks more honestly like Jiang than anything. “‘Oh, I’m Venka, and I’m mean, but in a fun and sexy way.’ Not, ‘I’m Venka, and I want to disembowel you and ruin your life for no reason like I did when I was young and stupid.’”

“Maybe Venka’s just a bitch.” He's smart enough to avoid commenting on _fun and sexy_ as a descriptor for Venka. He thinks she is very much the opposite of _fun and sexy_ , but he also thinks Rin isn't even aware of the implication of those words.

“Hm- _m_ ,” Rin hums, unwilling to commit to a response. She decides to let Venka be, to let her stew in whatever shit she’s landed herself in. 

They run a whole two weeks without an incident. Rin has practice ‘round the clock for the middle of football season and is perpetually drowning under her homework anyway, and Venka is off doing Venka things (also drowning in an ocean of assignments and tests and an overly competitive spirit). When Rin remembers to, she wonders if Venka’s sorted out whatever had been on her mind so obviously.

“Rin,” says Venka; there’s a sour look on her face. Rin chalks it up to academic stress, since they have an exam in Hesperian tomorrow and frankly, no one understands it. She nods, to show she’s listening, and pops up to put the 300-odd pounds she was squatting on the rack. 

“I know I was kind of,” she pauses, “rude, last time we talked.” Rin snorts and starts to clean up, figuring now’s as good a time as any if Venka’s finished with her practice already. Sometimes, when she’s in the weight room, she hears screaming from the track where cheer practices stunts for games and wonders if she’s hearing Venka or her poor subordinates. “But, um, I’m over that shit now—and it wasn’t about you, either, so don’t go thinking it was. Do you want to start sparring together regularly again?” She speeds up as she rambles on, so when she finally reaches her question, Rin has to take a second to process.

“Sure, why not?” She’s always up to improve. They walk together, side by side, back to the locker rooms, and from there to their dorm, the whole way in total silence. Rin doesn’t mind, because she’s always found talking to Venka just a little bit grating, a little too prickly. She wonders vaguely if people feel the same way about her. Rin is so obviously too much for this world; a little too coarse for the Sinegardians, a little too dark, a little too aggressive. Sometimes, she wonders if she’s too angry, if she’s the only one immune to the destructive flame that keeps her going. 

Sometimes, she’s a little afraid she’s not immune either. 

Still, that flame is everything that’s kept her going. It pushed her out of the Fangs’ clutches, propelled her past Venka and then Nezha for top spot in the class, gave her a promising career and a sport she loves. 

_She’s always up to improve._ She works so hard to make herself indispensable; to ensure herself a place in her loved ones’ hearts. The last few weeks, she’s hated how inconstant Venka’s been, the incessant reminder of her former disdain. A little further and Rin might snap at her. When Venka bids her goodnight, she turns away and glares into the dark.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in this chapter: rin doesn't know how she feels. venka knows how she feels but she does not know how to deal with it. rin switches violently between wanting to be venka's friend (sure, rin) and hating venka's guts. they finally kiss at the end. umm tws for partying, intoxication (smoking and drinking), aggressive sapphic pining, a little racism/classism. yup yup that's it

Rin’s never been much of a diplomat.

“You’re stepping on my toes,” Kitay complains. 

“I am not.”

“Yes, you are. That’s not the kind of statement you can just deny—”

“I am not, and if I was, you should ignore it, because I am getting you out of Medicine.” Rin sticks her nose in the air and turns them, ignoring the crunch of Kitay’s toes beneath her feet.

“I like Medicine. I don’t like being forced to dance, which I am shit at, in front of the whole school for the Homecoming rally.”

“I like this as much as you do,” Rin rolls her eyes. “It wasn’t my idea.”

“Rin, be mindful of your partner’s toes,” Venka calls as she waltzes by gracefully in Nezha’s arms. They look perfect together, her skirt floating up as she twirls and his eyes sparkling as he dips her. Kitay curses when Rin’s hands clamp down  _ hard _ on where they’re attached to his shoulders. 

“If you’re going to blame anyone, blame that demon woman.”

“No, I am going to blame your enormous feet. Have you seen a doctor for them? They’re, like, disproportionate for someone your height.” 

“Why am I friends with you?” Rin asks. “Little mathlete freak.” Kitay grins, and she looks around nervously, recognizing that expression. “No, don’t—”

“Because of this.” He dips her, or tries, and then he fucking drops her. “Oops.”

Rin can’t help her short scream, instinctively curling into a ball. When she hits the ground and realizes none of her bones are broken, she moans and tucks her chin further into her chest.

“Kitay, I hate you.” He doesn’t look particularly perturbed, smirking as he inscribes the frankly hilarious events that have just transpired on the tablet of his memory. 

First, Rin falling; physical comedy always tickles him. Second, the way both Venka and Nezha shove off each other to dart to Rin’s side, despite Kitay having practically deposited her at their feet. 

“Are you okay?” Venka’s voice is shrill, and Rin looks up to find herself crumpled right next to both Venka and Nezha.  _ Great. _

Nezha reaches out to help her up, and she only glares disdainfully at him before pushing herself up. 

“No thanks to you,” she says to Venka, and sweeps as grandly as she can back to Kitay, blind to the way Venka’s eyebrows tilt up and her mouth parts in a pretty pout. Rin might not see it, but Kitay does. He grins. That’s as crestfallen as Venka gets.

-

October comes and October passes, and Halloween parties and the end of the football season get all jumbled together. 

It’s the last game of the season, and despite the biting cold blowing in, most of Sinegard Academy is in the stands, packed together for lack of space as much as they are for warmth. Rin runs hot, though, declining offers of hot chocolate in favor of pouring a bottle of water over her head prior to warm-ups. She has to make a run back to the locker rooms right before the whistle blows, shocked to see Venka inside, squeezing herself into her cheer top. 

“Hey,” she waves as she jogs in. Venka waves back, a startled kind of expression on her face, too caught off guard to scowl at her. It’s kind of cute. Rin slaps her cheeks, irritated at the way her brain will fixate on anything but the impending game. As she’s running over strategies in her head, Venka jolts her out of her thoughts.

“Are you nervous?” 

“No. I’m just running in and out, I have to go right after this.” Rin prepares to jog back out.

“Oh, shit,” and despite herself, she turns around. “No, it’s fine, I just don’t have a reflection to do my lipstick in.”

“Phone?”

“No,” Venka groans. “That’s why I’m here so late. I forgot to charge it, so it died, so the alarm didn’t go off, and I tend to lose track of time at archery.” Rin arches a brow. A rare admittance for her. “Oh, shut up. I can hear your thoughts.”

“Do you need it?” Rin asks, attempting to school her expression into one of patient understanding or at least heavy disdain instead of fond amusement. 

“Uh, yeah.” Venka looks perturbed that Rin isn’t intimate with this particular piece of cheerleader lore. “It’s required for all cheerleaders, and—”

“You’re the captain, I know, I know. Gotta set an example.” They grin at each other, both a little flushed from the cold. Venka scrunches her nose, which is glowing practically red, and looks away.

“Look, I hate to ask, and I mean I really hate to, but can I use your phone?” 

“Don’t have it,” Rin shrugs. “I can do it for you. Probably.”

“Oh, no,” Venka’s eyes widen. “No, it’ll come out all messy.”

“I can do it,” Rin glares at her and before she can get a hold of her competitive instincts (or her feet), she’s in front of Venka, hand out expectantly. It’s Venka’s turn to quirk a brow, but she drops the little black tube into her hand and opens her mouth obediently.

Rin cups her jaw and rubs her thumb along her soft, soft skin gently before lifting her other hand to aim the lipstick.

“Do you mind if I come a little closer?” Her voice is low, husky, a sound unknown to her beyond the earliest mornings. Venka shakes her head almost imperceptibly. Rin shuffles closer, her eyes narrowed in concentration. Venka wonders if she can see her pulse fluttering in her neck, so very close to where Rin’s warm hand is making contact with her. She might have to redo her high ponytail with all this electricity sparking through her blood, originating at the places Rin is trying so hard and failing not to brush against and startle her. 

After what feels like an elongated eternity of breath exchange and heavy silence, Rin presses the red stick to Venka’s lips, her knuckles grazing along before the color gets there. She’s so careful with it, using short strokes and her thumb to ensure clean lines. She does the bottom lip, then the top, admiring Venka’s perfect Cupid’s bow, then silently tugs at her lower jaw. Venka follows the prompting and opens her mouth wider, revealing glossy white teeth and a pink tongue, letting Rin trace the very corners of her mouth with a light hand. 

“Ah— shit,” Rin swears, and something tangibly snaps between them. The spell is broken. “Can I—?” 

“Yeah, sure,” Venka says, trying to feign nonchalance, her raspy voice betraying her. The corners of her mouth turn down a little for only a second before she’s gaping at Rin, who licks her third finger and then swipes at a spot just to the right and beneath Venka’s bottom lip.

“There. Go ask your squad if it’s cheer captain worthy, ‘cause I promise you it is.” Rin crooks her a grin that’s more confident than she really feels. Venka presses her lips together, evening out the bright color.

“Thanks, I think,” she says drily. “Have a good game. I’ll be cheering for you.”

“What, no good-luck kiss?” Rin asks in her slow, rolling accent and before she can melt under the honeyed tones Venka laughs, ebullient and hearty. Still, once the football player’s left, she has to take a moment to steady her shaky knees.

It’s a cold November night, but she finds that she doesn’t need her jacket for the duration of the game.

-

Altan Trengsin may have graduated last year, but that doesn’t mean he can’t still be a bad influence on students from Sinegard. Mostly, it’s his legacy, of broken beer bottles and miracles of evasion that remains, memories of his two-year stint as Debate Club President and double-edged teacher favoritism fading in favor of fun. Altan is long gone, blown away on his motorcycle to a political-sciences major and a boyfriend rumored to be the heir to a small country and a model to boot, but his memory lingers in every party Sinegard’s students throw. 

Rin recalls Altan’s warm demeanor and intimidating Stygian eyes and shudders all over, her eyes closed three-quarters of the way and a closed-lipped smile stretched over her face. The icy bottle in her hand threatens to slip, and she has to suppress a chuckle because she’s just tipsy enough that all her muscles feel loose, relaxed, that the world is lovely and golden all over.

She rarely comes to parties, if she’s being honest; she’s too much of a workaholic. Then again, everyone at Sinegard is a workaholic, and they made time to drop by whoever had an empty house in the city. Mostly, she came to stare longingly, soberly at Altan from an isolated corner while Kitay squinted at whatever tome he’d brought in the little light they had. Tonight, though, she deserves it, she thinks. They’d won in a staggering amount and she’d been no small part of it.

“You did good, kid,” Jiang had told her after the game, and she’d known its truth in her bones. Even Jun, had he been there, wouldn’t have been able to dispute it. She thinks she might have strained her smiling muscle, and she’s sure she’ll be sore all over tomorrow morning, and it’s euphoric. She feels electric and victorious all over. She feels like a god.

“Hey, man,” Nezha’s tone is exuberant and his face is, as always, ridiculously pretty. She bumps her fist against his and wobbles a little closer. “We’re all upstairs,” he points, “if you want.”

“What if I don’t want?” It’s teasing. He shoots her a look and wraps his hand loosely around her wrist.

“C’mon,” he wheedles, and it strikes Rin that Nezha may have pushed a little past his famous tolerance level. “C’mon, friend.”

“Okay, friend,” she smirks, and if there’s a little more emphasis on the last word than is  _ friend _ ly, it’s unintentional.

The upper room is refreshingly cool, and lit in a soft yellow glow. It’s probably a bedroom, judging from the bed and vanity.

“Nice mood lighting,” she says, and Kitay startles, his limbs twitching where he lies spread-eagled on the floor. “You good?” 

He rearranges himself and sits on his ass, his arms wrapped around his knees, and shoots a smile at her.

“Yeah, I’m good.”

“You’re high off your ass, you mean,” Venka, perched on the edge of the bed, crosses her legs superciliously, somehow. 

“At least it’s legal. Delinquents.”

Rin pats Kitay’s head gently and sits down next to him, her back against the box mattress and her shoulder brushing Venka’s leg. They both stiffen and then relax again, still touching.

“Hello, beautiful people,” Nezha turns, his hair swinging dramatically with him, and both girls giggle a little. Kitay snorts half a beat after them.

“We’re the beautiful people. That’s us,” Rin says, and she’s barely even blushing as she says it, instead leaning farther into Venka. Her hazy mind brushes right over it.

“We are,” Nezha says, sliding onto the carpeted floor, one hand propping his head up and the other on his hip. “Especially tonight, you gorgeous running back, you.”

“Don’t say shit like that, you liar,” she says, laughter warming her words.

“I never lie,” Nezha declares grandly. Rin reaches out one leg and kicks him hard. He curls into the fetal position and whines.

“Venka, why do you never defend me? Why,” he moans. “What did I ever do for you to betray me like this?”

“Shut the fuck up,” Venka drawls, getting off the bed and sitting on Nezha’s broad back. “You’re so dramatic.”   


“Ugh, get off,” he gasps, flailing. “My  _ ribs. _ I hate you. Venka. Venka!”

She throws back her head and laughs and Rin is filled with sudden, inexplicable anger at the sound. When she opens her eyes again, she’s pulled Venka off of Nezha and is holding both her wrists in one hand, staring straight down into her fathomless eyes.

“Sorry—” she moves to step back, but Venka’s already twisted out and jabbed her right in the stomach. “Gods, oh my gods, I think you— my fucking organs— bruised,” Rin doubles over.

Venka flounces back to Nezha’s side, leaning her head on his shoulder, her eyes slitted. Rin catches her breath and slumps down, pushing Kitay’s legs out and laying her head in his lap.

Silence.

“Your makeup is nice tonight, Venka,” Kitay tries. It doesn’t work, memories flooding the air and thickening it with tension.

“It’s always nice,” Rin says, and it’s meant to be snappy but it just sounds soft. Venka flushes and looks down, mink lashes casting shadows across her cheekbones. For once, she can’t find anything sharp lurking on her poison tongue.

“It is. You’re so pretty, V,” Nezha says, twisting his head to look at her.

“Fuck off,” Venka grumbles, nudging him with her shoulder but only succeeding in making the pair of them bounce back and forth a little. “And thanks, you guys.”

They all sit quietly for a few minutes, lost in their own heads, far more comfortable than they were in the awkward, blind anger of the recent past.

“How are you doing on Jima’s project?” Nezha breaks it. “You being, y’know, all of you.”

“Oh, fuck, don’t remind me,” Venka says, covering her face.

“Shut up,” Rin swats the bed in the other girl’s direction. “I’ve seen your project. I think you’ve started presenting in your sleep.”

“Says the one with a full-scale model of their stupid church.”

“I never complained about it.” Venka crawls to the foot of the bed and hangs her head down to stare at Rin. “Okay, yeah, it fucking sucks, I hate it, I hate Hesperian.”

“It’s not so bad,” Nezha says, to the immediate, clamorous opposition of his friends. “Well, the project is shit, but the class—”

“No. Nope. No,” Venka cuts him off. “You are so wrong for this one.”

“Yeah,” Kitay chimes in. “You just like playing devil’s advocate.”

“Kitay!” Nobody steps in to defend him. They’ve all been the victim of his long-winded “debates” in class. One of Rin’s life goals is now to burn every copy of  _ Thank You for Arguing _ she sees. “Why don’t you people love me?”   


“We love you, Nezha,” Rin says. “We just also think you’re very annoying.”

“And a guy,” Venka adds. Rin nods.

“And a guy.” 

“You don’t hate Kitay.”

“Sometimes I hate Kitay.” 

“What?”

“You’re much smarter than me. It’s annoying.”

“You’re annoying.”

“You love me.”

“Do I?”

“Everyone loves Rin,” Venka points out. “People who hate Rin love Rin. She’s like Altan.”

“Altan wasn’t that great,” Nezha shrugs, addressing the only part of the conversation he can refute. Offended gasps escape both Kitay and Rin.

“You have to shut up, Nezha, you’re gonna say something you’ll regret,” Kitay stands, dusting off his hands on his uniform pants. Nezha shrugs and stretches his smile out a little wider. The other boy rolls his eyes.

“Can we go downstairs? Get you some cold water or whatever?” They have a silent, angry conversation via eye contact, which Rin watches with great interest and Venka ignores as she taps at her phone screen. Finally, Nezha throws up his hands in a huff and Kitay stands to wrap a friendly arm around his shoulders. Nezha sags into him dramatically and throws up a peace sign as they exit the room.

“Should we go down?” Rin asks.

“You can, I’ll be down in a little bit,” Venka replies. “I want to catch my breath, you know? It’s kind of a lot.” Rin doesn’t really understand, but she stays, caught between whatever thread is pulling her to Venka and the spark of anger scraping against her soul every time she catches her eye.

“Are you worried?” Venka is lying down, her eyes closed and expression calm, her breaths even and regular and the only noise in the room as she waits for an answer.

“About what?” Rin asks, agreeing to indulge her. She rearranges herself, sitting cross-legged so she can look at Venka while she speaks

“Like, after this year. The future.”   


“Not really.”

“You wouldn’t be,” Venka sighs, and that familiar scraping sound fills Rin’s head.

“Why? Because I don’t have anything to look forward to? I’m too stupid to have real aspirations, much less a chance at meeting them? Because I’m still a poor fucking brown-skinned bitch?”

“Rin, no,” Venka tries, sitting up. “I’m so sorry, that’s not what I meant—”   


She’s already gone.

Downstairs is a blur of LED lights and too-loud music, perfect for the screaming of Rin’s mind as her emotions go to war with each other. She wanders through the kitchen, grabs an unopened beer, and eventually makes her way into some other room— an office, maybe, where Nezha is surrounded by people she uncharitably mentally labels groupies and Kitay is sitting quietly next to him, occasionally blowing sweet-smelling clouds directly into the group. Rin smiles, feeling a little soothed just at the sight of Kitay, always the anchor. She sits next to him and closes her eyes, letting the conversation and the wind from the open window wash over her.

Nezha cheerily calls a familiar name, one that Rin just can’t ignore, and her grip on her bottle tightens.

Even with her eyes closed, she can  _ feel _ Venka move through the room, cutting right through the small congregation to settle next to Nezha, defiance inlaid in her every step. She doesn’t say a word, and Rin has to wonder if it’s out of respect for her outburst or out of anger at it.

She holds herself carefully very, very still for a long moment, wondering if Venka will approach her. Her mind whirs with all the things she wants to say to her. Venka stays silent, and she relaxes.

Just kidding. She can never find peace.

“I’m so bored,” one of the groupies drawls. “Let’s play a game.”

“Like what?” Kitay asks, taking another hit and exhaling over them. Rin wrinkles her nose. 

“Seven minutes in heaven,” Venka suggests, and Rin can hear the joke in her flat, deadpan voice. The groupies seize on it.

“What are we, freshmen?” Somebody asks, and there are titters of agreement, but somehow they’re still sitting in a circle, Rin’s empty beer bottle co-opted as a spinner. 

Nezha spins more often than would make any statistical sense, and Rin’s steadily getting more drunk, and Venka is still dead silent beyond the occasional borderline rude quip. Whenever Rin looks at her, her face is a mask, but her eyes are red. Rin’s either driven her to tears or to smoke. It makes her feel a little smug and a little sad. Confusingly, it makes her feel worse to think that she hadn’t affected Venka at all. 

She and Kitay get called in for their seven minutes in heaven fairly early on, which is a relief. They spend their time alternating between real conversation and then kicking the wall and mock moaning louder and louder. When they exit, Nezha hasn’t managed to stifle his laughter and the groupies all look faintly disgusted. Venka is pale, but she always is. Still, there’s an almost green tinge and a faint downturn to her mouth, which Rin chalks up to the lighting and the perpetually displeased state she assumes Venka lives in.

“I’ll spin,” she offers, feeling confident and really intoxicated by the time the game is winding down, and as she does she prays that she doesn’t get a girl who was hoping to spend time with Nezha. The bottle spins, spins, spins, deciding her fate.

“Me?” Venka says, and her voice is strong and husky, and  _ wow _ , Rin’s changed her mind, she does want to talk about how pretty Nezha is for seven minutes with an underclassman or whatever it is that underclassmen do these days.

“You scared, Sring?” Rin asks, and Venka pushes to her feet.

“Never,” she vows, and grabs Rin’s hand to prove it. Her nails dig into her flesh, but Rin doesn’t even blink.

The closet door shuts behind them and it feels so much smaller than it did when it was Rin and Kitay in here together. There’s no light, so Venka turns on her phone’s flashlight and sets it on the floor, casting ghoulish shadows over their faces. 

A full minute passes, silence sitting like a dead thing between them. 

“Six minutes!” Nezha yells from outside. “Not that it matters—” A garbled noise and then something hits the wall outside.

“Shut up, Yin!” Venka calls, then turns to really face Rin for the first time, a questioning look on her face.

“I think Kitay shut him up,” Rin says, and Venka nods. She’s safe to talk.

“I’m sorry—” She starts.

“I wasn’t fair—” Rin says. They both break off. Venka takes a deep breath, and they’re shoved so close together that the movement means she almost brushes Rin.

“You were fair,” Venka says. Rin tries to interject but she narrows her eyes and bulldozes over her. “No bullshit, Runin. I might never have called you some of those things, but I made you feel that way. So it was fair.”

“I was drunk,” Rin says.

“Sober thoughts,” Venka pokes her side. 

“True,” she says, and her lips are turning up against her will. “You win. I admit it. You are a bitch. Are you happy?” Venka laughs, and Rin admires it like it’s something she hand-crafted despite the angry, hot emotion it sparks in her chest.

Rin’s smile is doing things to Venka and somewhere she thinks she should be angry at her for the sake of plot consistency but she’s not. She’s just happy to see Rin smile, and that thought does make her recoil a little bit, but she’s tired of fighting with Rin. She can stay like this, can’t she? Friends.  _ Friends. _ The word tastes odd, unfamiliar on her tongue. 

She leans against the side of the closet and sighs, still watching Rin out of the corner of her eye. A chasm splits the floor of that little closet. Rin wonders what Venka is thinking about. Venka wonders what Rin is thinking about. Everything feels charged. If Venka touched Rin, would the shock kill her? If Rin touched Venka, would a fire she couldn’t put out light?

Seven minutes pass and they get no answers.

Kitay drags them back around three A.M., complaining loudly the whole time and finally resorting to physical violence when Venka decides that she has to sit on the concrete or she will die, no,  _ really, _ Kitay, she’s going to unalive. 

“Can you two make it to your dorm alive and without waking up every faculty member within ten miles or not?”

“Ye of little faith,” Rin says, patting his freckled cheek. “We’ll be fine.”

Rin grips Venka’s hand and they make their way slowly to their dorm, shushing each other every so often exaggeratedly. In the morning, Rin will vaguely remember seeing a white shape that had Jiang’s face hanging upside down from one of the trees they pass, but she will assume her eyes and memory that night were untrustworthy.

Niang isn’t there, presumably still at the party. They both collapse into bed, and Venka almost— almost falls asleep as soon as she closes her eyes.

“Oh, gods,” she hears just before she slips off, and then the bathroom door banging.

“Shit,” she moans, and then rolls out of bed.

Rin is hunched over the toilet, retching. Panic makes Venka sober just a little bit. She pets Rin’s hair since it’s too short to really warrant holding back, making cooing noises in the hopes it’ll help. The room is still spinning around her, but helping Rin makes her feel grounded. She leans over her slightly, imagining herself as strong, stalwart Fang Runin’s protector for once. 

She’s not all selfless, though. Rin’s hair is soft.

Rin flushes, looking up at Venka and wrinkling her nose. 

“Sorry.”

“Just brush your teeth.” Rin obliges, and Venka takes the opportunity to do the same.

“Ugh, I’m still drunk,” Venka mumbles, rubbing lotion into her face.

“Gonna have a killer hangover,” Rin agrees. She leaves the bathroom, and with a last look in the mirror, Venka turns off the light and follows her. She practically feels a pull, right now, to follow Rin, to sit next to her on her bed and think dreamily about Rin’s legs, which are tucked up next to her.

“I can’t sleep because of you,” Venka says. 

“Is that a confession?” Rin dashes a grin at her.

“It’s a complaint.” It didn’t sound like one.

“How do you feel about— about that?” The words trip off Rin’s tongue. Venka cocks her head.

“About what?”

“Not you. Or us. In general. Girls who like girls.”

“Oh. Did someone say something to you?”

“No. I don’t think it’s common knowledge, like, at all.” Venka sighs in partial relief.

“So you think you know for sure?”

“Yeah. I didn’t see it for a while, but then— um. There was a catalyst that made me realize it. What was going on.”

“You won’t tell anyone,” Venka feels upset and angry and mostly lost. There’s a pit in her stomach. _ Rin knows things about her she hasn’t even really discovered? _

“Why wouldn’t I tell anyone?”

“I mean, I don’t really want you to share my preference with the whole school.”

“Your preference?”

“Are we— I feel like we’re talking about two different things.”

“I’m bisexual,” Rin says. “That’s what we’re— oh.” One of Venka’s hands is curled around the back of her neck, the other pressed up between their bodies, and one of her legs is between both of Rin’s, and her mouth is slotted over Rin’s like they were made to be connected. The world melts down into their two bodies, a thousand stars bursting in Rin’s vision. She gasps into Venka’s mouth, and Venka takes it as an invitation, presses forward, licks into her mouth and Rin welcomes it. Her face is hot and Venka’s hands are cold and she wraps an arm around her waist and pulls her farther into her lap, closer, her hands roaming over her sides, her back. 

Rin tastes mostly like mint and a little like tequila and Venka wonders absently what brand of chapstick she uses because her lips are  _ never _ this soft in winter. Then the very lips in question are on her neck and she stops thinking altogether.

“Are you sure?” Rin says when they come up for air and Venka smiles against her cheek.

“I kissed you first, idiot,” and then they’re diving back into each other, Rin lying down, Venka’s hands on both sides of her face. She’s straddling her, her knees digging into her sides, the moonlight streaming through the window and glowing cold on her beautiful face. Rin admires the silhouette of the girl on top of her, pleasantly dizzy from Venka’s kisses and the alcohol. She can barely believe she’s kissing Venka.

She’s kissing Venka.

She’s kissing  _ Venka _ .

Oh, shit.

She feels the other girl stiffen at the same time she does, and she can’t see Venka’s expression very well in the moonlight but she’s willing to bet it’s a little sick, the same face she made when she’d come out of that closet with Kitay.

“I’m tired,” Venka whispers, and scrambles off of her. Rin lets her go.


End file.
